YALE AND EUROPE 1850-1857 41 



my memory his humorous accounts of Italian life as he 

 had known it. 



During the whole of the journey, it was my exceeding 

 good fortune to be thrown into very close relations with 

 two of our party, both of whom became eminent Latin 

 professors, and one of whom, already referred to, 

 Frieze, from his lecture-room in the University of Michi- 

 gan, afterward did more than any other man within my 

 knowledge to make classical scholarship a means of cul- 

 ture throughout our Western States. My excursions in 

 Kome, under that guidance, I have always looked upon 

 as among the fortunate things of life. The day was given 

 to exploration, the evening to discussion, not merely of 

 archaeological theories, but of the weightier matters per- 

 taining to the history of Roman civilization and its in- 

 fluence. Dear Frieze and Fishburne ! How vividly come 

 back the days in the tower of the Croce di Malta, at Genoa, 

 in our sky-parlor of the Piazza di Spagna at Rome, and 

 in the old 1 1 Capuchin Hotel' ' at Amain, when we held high 

 debate on the analogies between the Roman Empire and 

 the British, and upon various kindred subjects. 



An episode, of much importance to me at this time, 

 was my meeting our American minister at Naples, Robert 

 Dale Owen. His talks on the political state of Italy, and 

 his pictures of the monstrous despotism of "King 

 Bomba" took strong hold upon me. Not even the pages 

 of Colletta or of Settembrini have done so much to arouse 

 in me a sense of the moral value of political history. 



Then, too, I made the first of my many excursions 

 through the historic towns of Italy. My reading of Sis- 

 mondi's "Italian Republics" had deeply interested me in 

 their history, and had peopled them again with their old 

 turbulent population. I seemed to see going on before my 

 eyes the old struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines, 

 and between the demagogues and the city tyrants. In the 

 midst of such scenes my passion for historical reading 

 was strengthened, and the whole subject took on new and 

 deeper meanings. 



